Industrial Action

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I welcome my noble friend’s support for this legislation in principle. I am happy to reassure him that the minimum service level will not be set by employers; it will be set by Parliament through affirmative regulations. Of course we will consult widely on those regulations. There will be regulations in each individual sector because, as he correctly states, the level varies from sector to sector. This House will vote on those regulations when we bring them forward, but it is our preference not to have to bring them forward. As I mentioned earlier, the nursing unions are very responsible and agree minimum service levels already—voluntarily—so we therefore hope not to need to legislate there, but of course that is not the case for ambulance drivers, where we may need to take action.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I regret that we are having the strikes; I speak with some background in the trade union movement. I urge the Government to be careful. They have had great difficulties in dealing with climate change demonstrators—it is extraordinarily easy these days to disrupt the operation of business in this country. I do not know what the Government would do if they set their minimum levels and they required the employer to get the employees to do the work, and all those employees went off sick. What action would they take and how would the law stand? The Government should be very careful indeed before they move forward, and I am surprised to hear that they have not even consulted ACAS. If we do not watch out, we will go over some silly old ground that we have covered before which caused great damage to the country, so I urge the Government to act with care and caution.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I welcome the noble Lord saying that he regrets the strike action—I think that is the first time I have heard anybody from the Opposition say that they regret the inconvenience that has been caused to the public. I take in good heart his other comments; of course we will proceed with care and caution, and with full consultation. However, we are very clear that this action needs to be taken in some sectors, because the public are getting tired of the disruption caused by the actions of one or two unions to their ability to go about their daily business.